


Morning Star, The Star of Love

by AstridMyrna



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Gen, Happy, Love, Mother-Son Relationship, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Short & Sweet, Sweet, calm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 09:44:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7097386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridMyrna/pseuds/AstridMyrna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A teenaged Steve Rogers waits for morning light so he can sketch, and is joined by his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning Star, The Star of Love

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics are from "Morning Star" by Nat King Cole, which inspired this fic. I highly recommend listening to that first before reading, but it's not necessary.

_You will see the morning star._

_It gleams for just one moment,_

_one moment in the skies,_

_then it shines forever after_

_deep in a mother’s eyes._

 

Sixteen-year old Steve Rogers sat on the wood stairway just outside his apartment, pressing a knobbly knee against its railing. Sketchbook balanced on his thighs, he twiddled with his sharpened pencil. Scarlet dawnlight ripped across the sky, but the apartment building cast shadows too dark for him to see what he would be drawing. He was tempted to just sketch in the dark and be surprised when it was light enough to see his creation.

He couldn’t afford to waste paper, so he held his pencil between his teeth and watched the sky.

“You’re up early,” Sarah, his mother said as she joined him at the stair.

Steve spat out his pencil. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Sarah handed him the last chip from the icebox, wrapped in a yellowed handkerchief. He pressed the ice against his neck, a thick drop of melted water shivering down his spine.

“Thank you,” he said. “When does the iceman come today?”

“Usually before noon.” 

The red in the sky softened into pink and candy-floss clouds crawled into view. Sarah sat up a little straighter in her faded green day dress, her long neck craning over Steve’s head.

“Heavens, have you ever seen the sky like that?” she asked, her dusty blue eyes growing wide.

“No.”

 He wished he had paints to copy it into his sketchbook, but he knew that if he painted this scene it would look like he vomited Pepto-Bismol in his sketchbook. Gold light washed over pink, flooded over the lines of hanging laundry and into the trash-strewned alley. Steve offered the ice to his mother, whose face glistened in the dim light. Sarah pressed the ice against her ruddy cheek.

 “What’s that look for?” she asked, her pale lips fighting a grin.

He had been staring at her because he wasn’t sure if she was wearing make-up or not, and he’d never seen her without make-up before because she always woke and put her make-up on before waking Steve up for school, and now he just realized how strange it was to be suddenly obsessed with such a little detail this early in the morning. 

“C-Can I draw your face? I...uh...like how the light looks on your face,” he sputtered out the first excuse in his head.

She laughed. “But I don’t have my face on!”

He smiled. “I can add it after.”

She fluttered her eyelashes, which made him laugh.

“Make my eyebrows real thin, like Greta Garbo,” she said, holding her face very still.

He didn’t answer, because he was quickly sketching her square-face turned up towards the dawn light. He wasn’t exactly lying about liking how the faint light streaked over her face. The strips of shadow over the right side of her face made it look as if she had captured starlight in her eye. At least, that’s how it looked in his head, but on paper it looked silly.

When he finished, he observed his work and scowled. He added way too much shadow, the lines of her strong jaw were too soft, and she looked like she belonged in a Disney short. The dawnlight and shadows it created had changed too much since he started sketching, so there was no way to try to capture the same effect again.

“Now let me see,” Sarah said, and when he somberly showed the picture to her, she squealed with joy. “Oh Steve! Oh Steve, that’s grand. That’s real grand. You’re so talented!”

“I hate it.” 

“Oh, stop. Look, you even made my eyebrows real thin like I asked.”

He shrugged.

“Well, _I_ like it. Don’t throw it away. Ever.” She poked him on the shoulder.

“All right, all right, I won’t throw it away.”

“Ever.”

“Ever. I promise.”

“Good,” she said and stood up. “I better put my face on before someone catches me out here.”

Steve snapped his sketchbook shut. “I can make coffee.”

She leaned down and ruffled his hair. “I couldn’t have asked for a better son.”

He laughed as he followed her back into the apartment, but Sarah just smiled at him, morning light twinkling from deep within her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I just really wanted to write a nice scene between a young!Steve and his mom where they're both having a nice, relaxed moment.


End file.
